


'Til My Dying Day

by elysiumwaits



Series: Let's Go Steal a Secret Husband [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Leverage Fusion, Angst, Angst and Humor, Betrayal, Ensemble Cast, Grifter Peter Hale, Grifter Stiles, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Manipulation, Not as intense as the tags make it sound, Secret Marriage, Secret Relationship, Steter Week, Stiles Has a Lot of Aliases, Stiles and Peter Are the Same Age, Thief Peter Hale, Thief Stiles Stilinski, lying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 06:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20077741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elysiumwaits/pseuds/elysiumwaits
Summary: Stiles expects to walk away from this con with some money in his bank and some revenge for his client. As he usually does, Peter shows up to throw a wrench in things.--“You stole a very nice diamond ring while we were at that resort.”“It was a very nice ring,” Peter agrees. “The wedding bands were cheap, but they did the job. Come to think of it, I don’t recall ever getting around to that divorce.”“To be completely fair, you shot me twelve hours after the wedding.” Stiles turns and deposits his still-mostly-full glass on a passing waiter’s tray. “I’m pretty sure attempted murder is actually grounds for an annulment.”





	'Til My Dying Day

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t even know if gay marriage is legal in Aruba, but I’m gonna say it is for the purposes of this fic. There’s a lot of hand-wavy stuff in here, so… Quote is from Leverage, actually, which inspired this piece. I’m not sure if I’m going to build on it? It was just a little plot-bunny that demanded to be written. I’m honestly not even sure this is coherent. 
> 
> Written for Steter Week but I don’t think it fits a theme.

Stiles can count on one hand, on exactly four fingers, how many people there are alive that know his real name, and only two that can pronounce it correctly.

One is his father, of course, not that they’ve spoken in recent years. He can pronounce it, of course, but Stiles has it on good authority that he hasn’t said it since that last visit two years ago. 

One is Scott McCall, but Scotty could look a nun in the eye and lie without remorse if it meant protecting Stiles, so Stiles has nothing to fear there. Scott hasn’t sold him yet, and considering that Scott is currently sitting pretty in a maximum security prison courtesy of his own father and has been for a few years now, he probably won’t. Besides, he can’t pronounce it or spell it correctly off the top of his head, so even if he  _ did _ want to give Stiles up, the information wouldn’t get very far.

One is Lydia Martin, who is currently the person making the plans that put money in Stiles’ many bank accounts and safe houses. She doesn’t know she knows Stiles’ name - she guessed it a couple of weeks ago with a Polish baby name list pulled up on her phone and a glass of wine in her hand. She doesn’t know she can’t win this guessing-game of theirs, thinks Stiles has tells because that’s what he wants her to think. He might tell her someday, when he’s more sure that she is securely one of  _ them _ now, badge locked away in a safe for good. Lydia can’t pronounce it anyway, though she could probably spell it perfectly if she knew it was important.

Number four on the list is currently standing next to Stiles’ mark across the hotel ballroom, looking just as surprised to see Stiles as Stiles is to see him. 

“Shit,” Stiles swears under his breath, into the rim of the ridiculous cocktail he’d ordered as part of his cover.

The comm picks it up, of course. There’s no privacy mid-con, and a comm going silent is a quick way to get Derek in to extract Stiles from whatever mess he’s gotten himself into. 

“ _ What’s going on? _ ” Lydia demands in Stiles’ ear. She’s across the ballroom in the other direction, wearing a very expensive dress and on her way to charm some poor hotel employee into giving her the room key they need.

“There’s a familiar face here, just hold on,” is all Stiles has time to say before the mark, Gordon Jones, is too close for him to continue. 

“Jessie!” Gordon says in that ridiculous loud boom of his, the obnoxious kind meant to draw attention because he is Very Important, and everyone should know. “I have someone I want you to meet.”

Stiles pastes a smile on. He’s not Stiles here, after all, he’s Jessie Buchanan, an Instagram and YouTube influencer looking for his big acting debut with sleazy Hollywood producer Gordon Jones. His hand tightens on the stem of his cocktail glass, and he quickly assumes the puppy-like, endearing persona he’s supposed to be wearing. 

“ _ Everyone just sit tight _ ,” Lydia says in Stiles’ ear. “ _ We’re pressing the pause button until we figure out who this is _ .”

“Jessie Buchanan,” Gordon goes on before Stiles can come up with something to say to the producer and his  _ very _ unexpected companion. “This is Shane Rhodes, he’s an agent, definitely the kind of man you want on your side on your rise to the top. Shane, this is Jessie - he’s one of those new influencers, has a big following on that picture app. Looking to move from small-time theater to the big screen!”

“We’ve met.” Peter Hale looks just as good in a well-tailored suit as Stiles remembers. The rings on his left hand catch the bright lights of the ballroom. “I’ve seen some of Mr. Buchanan’s work,” Peter says, a smirk playing on his mouth. “I caught you in a Shakespeare play once in New York, you played a very good Puck. Very  _ mischievous _ .”

Stiles’ comm crackles again. “ _ Is that my uncle _ ?” Derek sounds incredulous. Annoyed, too, of course, Derek is always annoyed. 

“That was me.” Stiles makes very sure that the smile on his face is warm and welcoming, lets a little surprise slip through. “Not many people saw that performance,” he says. New York involved convincing a lawyer that he was the illegitimate son of a dead billionaire, and then blowing a chunk of his hush money/faux-inheritance on a very nice hotel room that he and Peter didn’t leave for a week. That was before Stiles turned over a new leaf, of course. 

“As I recall, it was a private affair.” Peter doesn’t bother to hide the appreciative once-over he gives Stiles, which clues Stiles in very quickly on the game they’re going to be playing here. “You’re very talented. I hear you play Robin Hood more than Robin Goodfellow these days, though. What other roles do you play, Jessie?”

Stiles is supposed to be worming his way in as Gordon’s next-big-thing, but Peter’s appearance has definitely thrown things into rocky territory. Peter can easily expose him as a fraud, very well still might, considering all of their history and whether ratting Stiles out would suit Peter’s needs. What he needs to do is get Peter alone and then figure out if he’s going to need an extraction.

“Mr. Rhodes.” Stiles blinks his eyes in that way that makes him look harmless and like he’s begging to be defiled at the same time. He’s been told it’s a talent, how irresistible he can make himself seem. Coincidentally, it had actually been Peter who’d told him that. “I can be anyone you want me to be.”

“Like I said, Shane here is a good man to have on your side,” Gordon says with a wink, like the sleazeball he is. “I’m sure you two can work something out. I’ll leave you to it. Hotel room is on me, of course, Shane!” He claps a hand on Peter’s shoulder and strides away, probably to go hassle a waitress or something. Stiles can’t wait to ruin his entire media empire.

They watch him go for a moment, and Stiles keeps that smile on his face. There are still witnesses all around, after all. “Shakespeare was a nice touch,” he says. “I had almost forgotten about that night.”

“It was a good performance,” Peter says, taking a drink of his own martini. “We only saw half of it, of course, considering we spent the intermission and last half in the coat closet. New York was good to us both, Mischief.”

“ _ Do I have to listen to this? _ ” Derek sounds even more annoyed in Stiles’ ear now, and not for the first time, Stiles curses the lack of privacy during cons.

He can hear Lydia sigh. “ _ Yes, unfortunately. We all do. _ ”

“No one calls me that anymore,” Stiles says. “‘Mischief’ is long dead.”

“I’ve heard.” Peter glances around the ballroom. “Isn’t ‘Stiles’ a little close to the real thing, too? ‘Mischief’ was easier to play off, I think.”

Ah, Stiles had forgotten how Peter could simultaneously be the most frustrating and the most fascinating person in a room. “Are you just here to critique my alias choices,  _ Peter _ ? Some of us weren’t lucky enough to have such generic, forgettable names we can actually use them in cons, after all.”

“You never had any trouble remembering it,” Peter says mildly, like he’s not looking at Stiles with that damned little sparkle in his eyes. “At one point, if memory serves, it was the only word you  _ could _ remember.”

“ _ I’m going to claw my own ears off, _ ” Derek says.  _ “You slept with my uncle, Stiles _ ?”

“That was Aruba, I think.” Stiles is wearing a real grin, now, sharp around the edges, he knows. It’s a mirror to Peter’s more subdued one. “You stole a very nice diamond ring while we were at that resort.”

“It  _ was  _ a very nice ring,” Peter agrees. “The wedding bands were cheap, but they did the job. Come to think of it, I don’t recall ever getting around to that divorce.”

“ _ You married my uncle, Stiles?!” _ Derek snaps over Lydia’s exasperated groan. Back at their base of operations, he’s sure that Danny is beating his head against a keyboard while Allison looks on. They never talk much, but Stiles knows they listen.

“To be completely fair, you shot me twelve hours after the wedding.” Stiles turns and deposits his still-mostly-full glass on a passing waiter’s tray. “I’m pretty sure attempted murder is actually grounds for an annulment.” 

“It was your leg,” Peter scoffs. “That’s hardly ‘attempted murder,’ and I did it for your own good. The trip to the hospital gave you the chance to paint me as the conman who swindled you instead of the partner in crime.” He assumes his place and his role, hand on Stiles’ lower back like he’s guiding him out toward the lobby. 

“My own good?” Stiles rolls his eyes as they weave through the crowd of wannabe-stars and the executives present to take advantage of them. “You shot me in the leg so that I couldn’t follow you when you ran off with all the heist money, and the fact that I could twist my way out of it was a happy accident. Now, Vancouver was attempted murder, I’ll admit it.”

“I still have the scar.” Peter sounds fond, but Stiles can see the little way that his jaw tightens. Peter was always worse at hiding his tells. “I honestly didn’t think you’d do it.”

“ _ All this murder talk is making me nervous _ ,” Lydia snaps. “ _ Do we need to pull the plug, or do you have a handle on this _ ?”

They’re outside the ballroom in the mostly empty lobby now, the doors closing behind them. The mood shifts - jovial and friendly to a little more tense as they both note the lack of witnesses and where the security cameras are. Peter pulls his hand away and fishes a key card out of the pocket of his criminally tight pants, holds it up between his middle and index finger before passing it to Stiles. 

“Let Miss Martin and my nephew know that you’re in good hands,” Peter says. Stiles eyes shoot from the key card to Peter’s face, knows his expression hardens when Peter holds up his hands placatingly. “I’m not carrying here and neither are you. Turning you or your little found family in won’t get me anywhere, sweetheart. Besides, it’s become very common knowledge in our world that you don’t want to be on the bad side of your crew.” Neither of them have a gun, as Peter says, but they both know they don’t need one to be dangerous. 

A smart man would walk away, back to the party, or perhaps to another country. A smart man would have gotten the divorce, or never married Peter Hale in the first place.

“I have a handle on this. He’s my husband, he won’t hurt me.” Stiles is looking at Peter when he says it, but they both know he’s talking to the little piece of technology in his ear. “Assuming I’m not needed for the next phase.”

“ _ You were literally just reminiscing about shooting each other.”  _ She’s got a point but Stiles doesn’t admit it, and after a moment Lydia sighs again. “ _ Allison’s already on her way in to get Gordon’s laptop out of his hotel room, so we’ll be able to work around you. I’m gonna take this moment to remind you that there are rules about having sex with comms in _ .”

“ _ Leave the comm in _ ,” Danny pipes up in one of his rare comm comments. He’s teasing, of course, probably to get a rise of Derek. “ _ Especially if you’re going to be having sex with Derek’s hot uncle.” _

It works - Derek rises to the bait like he always does when Danny or Stiles tries to get under his skin. “ _ Don’t have sex with my uncle,”  _ he gripes. “ _ I swear to God, Stiles, if I have to come and extract you while you’re naked with my uncle, it won’t just be a murder attempt _ .”

They step onto the elevator under the nosy gaze of the desk clerk. Stiles gives her a wink and a little finger wave as the door closes, before he settles out of the excited and slightly naive role of Jessie Buchanan and back into the tense and much more jaded mind of who he actually was - whatever he was calling himself these days. He glances over and finds Peter looking at him, a considering and intrigued expression on his face. 

Stiles rolls his eyes and leans back against the rail of the elevator, watches the digital numbers above the door tick up. “You’ve seen it before,” he says.

“And it always manages to catch me off guard,” Peter replies, a little too quietly, and Stiles looks over at him again, sharply this time. “You’re a chameleon, darling. You would be an award-winning A-Lister if you were actually a Hollywood heartthrob.”

The doors open, which is honestly a relief. It gives Stiles a chance to step into the hallway and avoid saying anything in return. He fingers the key card and glances at the number, lets the corner of his mouth turn up in a there-and-gone smile.

“812,” he says, taking off down the hallway. “What a coincidence, Peter.”

“At least you know I’ll never forget our anniversary.” Peter follows a few steps behind, catches up when Stiles reaches the door and keys it open. Stiles is mildly impressed that the door doesn’t make a sound, no creaky hinges here. Peter reaches for Stiles’ arm, but Stiles pulls away before the motion is barely more than a gesture.

He takes a few steps into the frankly obscenely expensive hotel room, out of Peter’s reach, as Peter closes the door. Stiles takes another moment and finds the light switch, on a dimmer - he sets it at about three-quarters of the way, bright enough he can see Peter and just dark enough that they’ll both feel safe in the shadows.

“I thought you were dead.”

Stiles doesn’t turn at Peter’s words. Instead, he moves farther into the room, sweeps his fingers along the underside of the desk as he goes, stares at the near-perfectly made king-sized bed and the little bump of fabric the maid must have missed near the headboard, before he slides over to the window and pulls the curtain aside to look outside at the lights of the city around them, bright in the night.

“Mischief,” Peter snaps - he’d never enjoyed being ignored, another little tell, a tool in Stiles’ arsenal. Stiles turns, gives Peter the same critical, calculating look he’d given the hotel room. “I got a phone call from a contact of yours in the art world, and when they said you’d missed a meeting, I found a whole forum of rumors. I wasn’t aware I was your criminal emergency contact, by the way, thank you for the heads up.”

Stiles gives another flash of a smile, walks over to the bed. “She only knows you as an associate. She’s the only other person in the world besides me with that number, and she has no idea how important it is.”

“A number you apparently forgot.” Peter doesn’t smile back, face that cold, impassive mask he likes to wear. He gives himself away in the eyes, Stiles knows - never quite mastered how to trick a trickster. Peter is a master liar, yes, to anyone who doesn’t know  _ exactly _ what to look for. “I went to California. Found your rings in a safety deposit box in some small town bank.”

Stiles notes, distantly, that his comm is silent. It’s probably for the best, means his team is hard at work, and he wonders if he should take it out before Peter lands any hits he doesn’t want Lydia or the others to hear. No privacy during a job, though, and their secrets are slowly coming out one by one to each other these days. Stiles can afford to let go of a few if it means he knows that they know where he is should things go haywire.

“How’s my dad?” he asks, glances down at the modern-chic bedspread under his fingertips and then back up at Peter. 

“Stubborn. I had to show him three forms of identification to get the key. He only gave it to me after he saw the one with my real name.” Peter’s mask cracks a little at that, hurt showing through his eyes in a way that the rest of his face won’t show. “And then he made me show him our wedding picture. Just to make sure I wasn’t my own evil twin or something.”

Stiles nods, swallows. “Yeah, there’s… there’s a matching one in the deposit box. But you know that if you’ve got the rings, I guess.” He knows the picture, even though he hasn’t actually looked at in two years - Stiles and Peter in pilfered suits, smiling at the camera over a stolen wedding cake. They’d stolen the whole wedding, actually, hijacked it right under the bride and groom’s noses. Romantic, in a way, for them. Only two copies of that photograph exist. “How’d he look?”

“I honestly checked out of the conversation when I learned I wasn’t really a widower, so it’s difficult to recall,” Peter says softly, eyes studying Stiles like he was some kind of mystery to be solved. “As you can imagine, it was kind of a shock.” 

Stiles nods again, runs his fingers over the comforter just to feel the sensation. Peter comes around the bed, so that they’re on the same side, but stops before he gets close enough to reach out and touch Stiles, before Stiles can reach out and touch him. 

“Mischief, look at me,” Peter demands, and Stiles does, darts his eyes up to meet Peter’s gaze. These aren’t his Bambi eyes, this a genuine expression - and honestly, Stiles doesn’t know what he’s giving away in this moment. Peter, though, is a goldmine of information and emotion, tense and authentic. “I thought you were dead for  _ six months _ . There was no trace of you anywhere that I could find, and you didn’t call.”

“You told me once that you can’t grift a grifter, and you can’t cheat an honest man.” Stiles takes a step back as Peter takes a step forward, slipping just out of reach. He’s trapping himself, though, going up towards the wall and the head of the bed. “ _ Mischief _ died bleeding on the floor of grimy room in a roadside motel in Texas two and a half years ago, after someone he trusted implicitly gave him up to a shiny badge who was a little too trigger happy.”

Peter steps back, stricken, as though Stiles has hauled back and slapped him. 

“ _ Stiles _ , though, got pulled by a badge-turned-thief and a hitter from a hospital room while recovering from a couple of almost-fatal bullet holes, under the noses of a few very upset law enforcement officers, who, by the way, liked to gloat.” Stiles pauses, looks down and runs his hand along the side of the bed again, feels the softness of the thread count and takes a moment to wistfully imagine curling up beneath it, naked with Peter. “So I imagine that it  _ was _ a pretty big shock when it turned out you hadn’t gotten me killed after all.”

Silence. Peter never speaks without thinking, turns words over in his mind before he lets them fall from his lips. Every single sound is calculated, Stiles knows. 

“You were never supposed to be hurt, let alone that close to death’s door,” Peter finally says. “It was a deal, plain and simple. Information - all I gave them was a general idea of where you were going after you shot me in Vancouver. There were a few variables that I didn’t factor in.” He blows out a breath, comes closer once more. This time there’s nowhere to go, Stiles’ between the wall and Peter, bed on one side. “It wasn’t revenge, Mischief,” he says, soft even in the quiet of the room, runs his hand up Stiles’ arm to his neck. Intimate, alluring. “You did what you had to do in Vancouver. I  _ told _ you to shoot me and run.”

“We wouldn’t have gotten very far with your broken ankle,” Stiles murmurs. He can admit in the privacy of his own mind that he’s glad to have confirmation that Peter’s betrayal wasn’t payback.

“Exactly.” Peter leans in, presses a gentle kiss to Stiles’ jaw. “I was happy to think that at least you would be able to ride off into the sunset. It’s just unfortunate that you didn’t actually kill me.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s unfortunate. I prefer you alive, actually.”

“If I had died, darling,” Peter says, and makes it sound like the most twisted seduction Stiles has ever heard. “If I had  _ died _ , you would be on a beach somewhere with a few less scars. You’d be significantly safer, enjoying an early retirement.”

Stiles shudders out a breath, curls his hand in the sheets of the bed beside him as Peter nips, just a little, below his ear. “Say my name, Peter,” he says, and closes his eyes for a brief second.

Peter freezes. He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and when he does speak, it’s a soft, pleading, “Mischief.” It tells Stiles everything he needs to know.

The sound of Stiles’ fingers on fabric, so loud now in this quiet hotel room, high above the city below. “You can’t grift a grifter, and you can’t cheat an honest man.” Stiles’ voice is admittedly a little rough in his betrayal. His hand lifts from the sheets and the side of the bed, holding a tiny black microphone between his thumb and pointer finger. “Which one are you tonight, Peter?”

Peter pulls away, slowly and hesitantly, like he doesn’t want to let go of Stiles, but doesn’t step back. “A little of both, I think,” he admits. 

Stiles drops the bug on the floor. It makes a little crunch sound when he steps on it. 

“You son of a bitch,” he says, can’t keep the hurt out of his voice when he looks from the destroyed bug on the floor to Peter. “What do they have on you?”

“My daughter,” Peter replies immediately. “They know where she is, they know how to get to her. They’re very ruthless, these enemies you’ve made while playing Robin Hood.” 

He moves, then, pushes Stiles up against the wall in a way that brings back memories of New York, Aruba, even Vancouver before it all went to shit, and then a few more places on top of that. There’s no kiss, though, just Peter pressing his forehead to Stiles’, hands dropping to Stiles’ waist as Stiles lifts his own to cradle Peter’s jaw. 

“I’m so fucking glad you’re as smart as you are.” The relief in Peter’s voice is crystal clear, and the most honest thing Stiles has heard all night. “Don’t let me catch you again, sweetheart, stay one step ahead of me.”

“I’ll figure this out,” Stiles promises. “These people - they’re  _ good _ , Peter.”

Peter nods, pulls away just to lean in and press a kiss to Stiles’ lips, quick with a hint of desperation. “You’ll need leverage. Rafael’s not an easy man to swindle, so bargaining is your best bet.”

The thought of Scott, sitting and waiting patiently for his escape, crosses Stiles’ mind. He’ll have to move that timetable up, but he can make it work. Hopefully by the end of it, Scott will be free and clear, and Stiles can have that early retirement on a beach with Peter next to him.

“I’m working on it,” is what he says, though. He can’t give Peter facts or even suspicions now - Peter is a loose end, a crack in Stiles’ careful armor.

“Make it look good,” Peter says to the line of Stiles’ jaw. “Give them a damn good reason not to mess with you again.”

Stiles swallows, tightens his fingers briefly on the skin of Peter’s cheeks. “Say my name,” he pleads quietly. “Just one more time.”

The smile that Peter gives is strained, but it’s so damn genuine it hurts. “ Mieczyslaw,” he whispers, pronunciation just as perfect as it had been on their wedding day.

Stiles smiles back, soft and honest.

Peter goes down easy as anything when Derek hits him, slumps into Stiles’ arms with a gasp of surprise he can’t hide, even if he’d suspected what was coming. With Derek’s help, Stiles gets Peter onto the bed, but he hesitates before he follows the hitter out that quiet door, instead slipping two of the rings off of Peter’s left hand. He leaves the band that sits on Peter’s ring finger and pockets the matching band and the diamond ring, before he slips out into the hotel hallway.

“What the  _ fuck _ was that?” Derek demands as soon as they’re in the stairwell, heading down eight flights of stairs for their very quick, unplanned exit. 

“A complication,” Stiles replies, breathless in their haste. “Big one.”

“ _ No kidding _ ,” Lydia says through the comm still in Stiles’ ear. “ _ Looks like we can leave Gordon Jones for the time being, so we can tackle… whatever the hell that was. _ ”

“Global crime syndicate with a corrupt FBI agent. He put my best friend in jail. We’re gonna have to go get him so that we can safely retrieve my step-daughter and husband from his evil clutches. Preferably without the step-daughter learning about me or Peter ever existing.” 

“ _ Oh, okay, yeah, easy as pie, _ ” Lydia gripes. “ _ Just what we do every day _ .”

Stiles and Derek take the last two flights and burst through the doors to the parking lot of the hotel. Allison opens the back doors to the van just in time for them to avoid being seen by the suspicious, nondescript black SUVs pulling into the lot from one of the other entrances.

Danny’s in the driver’s seat, of course, while Lydia’s in shotgun, taking off her long earrings. 

“That could have gone very badly,” Allison says urgently, and Lydia turns in her seat to give Stiles her best glare. “If you hadn’t gotten the room number across, if he’d managed to manipulate you - “

“He wasn’t trying to.” Stiles pulls the keycard out from his pocket, and the rings tumble into his hand as well. “He wouldn’t say my real name, we never saw that Shakespeare play, and our wedding anniversary is in April, not August. I knew something was wrong when he called me ‘Mischief’ in the ballroom. I suspected when he mentioned Shakespeare. It’s an old code.” He doesn’t look up as he speaks, instead turns the wedding band over and over between his fingers. “If he’d actually wanted to, he could have played me easily.”

“Fuck,” Derek says eloquently, and Stiles has to agree. 

Lydia stares at Stiles for a long moment, that gaze she gets sometimes that looks like she could stare into your soul and out the other side if you’re not careful. She’s apparently satisfied by whatever she finds, as she turns around in her seat and starts taking off her complicated, strappy heels. “Alright,” she says, all business. “Well, let’s go… steal a grifter.”


End file.
